Review: 97th Oscar-Nominated Shorts – Documentary (2025)

97th Oscar-Nominated Shorts (Documentary)

Death by Numbers (Short Film)

Rating

Director

Kim A. Snyder

Screenplay

Sam Fuentes

Length

33m

Starring

None

MPAA Rating

Not Rated

Review

In 2018, a school shooter killed 17 students and injured 18 others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. This short film follows the story of one of the survivors, Sam Fuentes, and her struggle to cope with the incident.

Through her poetry, art, and testimony, the audience is given an inside view of her speech before the jury in the sentencing trial of the shooter. We learn a little about her history and her battle with anxiety and depression as well as her resolution that her classmates not be forgotten. She tells the viewer about her experience, setting in stark terms the horrors of that day. While we don’t get an inside tour of the school where the incident occurred, we can understand and empathize will all that transpired.

It’s difficult to tell a story like this without coming down clearly on the side of the victims and, in this situation, there is no reason it shouldn’t have. It’s an affecting and emotional film that asks viewers to understand that the tragedy isn’t just the lives lost but the lives left behind. The lives that must endure life and move forward with the weight of that sadness on their shoulders for the rest of their lives. This short effectively presents that.

I Am Ready, Warden (Short Film)

Rating

Director

Smriti Mundhra

Screenplay

None

Length

37m

Starring

None

MPAA Rating

Not Rated

Review

A documentary on the death penalty is one of complexity. It cannot be easily distilled into its component parts. What I Am Ready, Warden attempts to do is not speak for the utter abolishment of the death penalty but asks the audience reflect on whether they are satisfied with the outcome.

This short follows three figures. The first is death row inmate John Henry Ramirez, a convicted murderer who stabbed a convenience store clerk 29 times and then fled to Mexico where he remained on the run for four years before being captured and put in prison. The second is Aaron Castro, the victim’s son. The third is Jan Trujillo a religious supporter of the death penalty who changed her stance after meeting and getting to know Ramirez. While Ramirez has found remorse and regret, he understands that this may not satisfy his victim’s son.

It’s a stark reminder that no issue has an entirely black-or-white position and the death penalty is one of them. This film looks at it from multiple perspectives and allows the audience to decide whether they agree with it being an outdated form of revenge or the destruction of more lives than just those of killer and victim. While it does try to present both sides, it does weight its evidence in one direction and there’s no harm in that approach, especially when it’s as honestly arrived at as this is.

Incident (Short Film)

Rating

Director

Bill Morrison

Screenplay

None

Length

30m

Starring

None

MPAA Rating

Not Rated

Review

Documentaries have taken many forms over the years but the ones that are most interesting and often most frustrating are the ones that stake out no position and present no viewpoints but just unfold for the audience like they are watching a train wreck.

Incident is one such short documentary. The events depicted are the shooting death of Harith “Snoop” Augustus by Chicago police in 2018. Comprised entirely of “found footage,” bodycams, dashcams, and surveillance videos, the film looks at the immediate response and damage control affected by Chicago’s police officers in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. It’s a fascinating look at not just the starkness of a shooting situation but the reaction on both sides. Cops assuring their fellow shooter they did nothing wrong and the community standing toe-to-toe with the police calling them out on their actions.

The biggest problem is that the short is too detached. While the attempt to “align” stories between the cops after the shooting is troubling, it doesn’t quite make your blood boil. It feels very aloof at times. Certainly, the job of crime reconstruction through civilly-accessible tools is a compelling subject, yet it doesn’t quite feel like it accomplishes anything worthwhile as a result.

The Only Girl in the Orchestra (Short Film)

Rating

Director

Molly O’Brien

Screenplay

None

Length

34m

Starring

None

MPAA Rating

Review

What documentary filmmaking is to different people makes the medium a fascinating playground of ideas. If you prefer thought-provoking, social justice issues, there are documentaries for you. If you like true crime mysteries, then there are docuseries. If you like to learn about new and interesting people, The Only Girl in the Orchestra is a great option.

Orin O’Brien is a prominent double-bassist who became the first woman with a permanent chair in the New York Philharmonic. Many of them referred to her by the pejorative “girl” at the time, but that didn’t stop her from becoming a renowned and popular figure within the orchestra. She reflects on her history with daughter Molly, the director of the short film, as she prepares to move to a new home. It looks at her life in the rearview mirror while also celebrating her continued pursuit of education for the next generation of talented students and providing solace and comfort for those around her.

If the viewer doesn’t come out of this short with an understanding of what kind of remarkable woman she is, then they clearly aren’t into this type of documentary. For everyone else, the brief snippet of her life will be absolutely captivating.

Instruments of a Beating Heart (Short Film)

Rating

Director

Ema Ryan Yamazaki

Screenplay

None

Length

23m

Starring

None

MPAA Rating

Not Rated

Review

The last short film of this year’s documentary batch is its weakest link. It is set in a Japanese school where first graders prepare to welcome their young successors by coming together to perform “Ode to Joy” on various musical instruments.

Following specifically young Ayame as she works hard to secure a place in the band, it watches her struggle to master her instrument while a supportive teacher assures her that she’ll always be with her. This in spite of a domineering music teacher who castigates her for her failure. Perhaps this is custom in Japanese culture but it lacks the kind of encouragement students generally need to succeed. Instilling in these children the notion that personal honor requires perfection gets in the way of the message of overcoming adversity and learning to be better than you were before.

For many, this might seem like a cute, life-affirming tale about striving for success in adolescence to build the character needed to go far in life but the tenor of the approach of the music teacher could sour the interest of those who believe support and encouragement are better teachers than belittlement and aggressive adherence to societal customs.